Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting

September 21, 2011

When was the last time you made a cake? A serious, from scratch, layered cake. This is the thought that occurred to me Tuesday as I was reading Dana Treat’sblog post about buying cupcakes versus making your own.

Maybe I should make a cake, I thought. Why not? You don’t really need a reason for a layered cake. Although, as I was pulling out ingredients, mixing them together, several good reasons went through my mind.

Things like…

it’s Tuesday…

the sun is shining…

the boys will be so surprised when they get home from school…

You know, important things like that.

Back to the cake.

I went with the basic white, but decided to jazz it up with this very delicious chocolate peanut butter frosting.

I think in the process of baking a layered cake you find out a few things about yourself. Things like are you patient enough to wait for the cakes too cool before you try working with them (kind of )? Or how much frosting will you eat while waiting for said cakes to cool (probably too much)? I learned that I am terrible at frosting layered cakes. I’m pretty sure this goes back to the fact that I hardly ever make them. But really, I can’t remember the last time I laughed at myself as much as I did yesterday afternoon trying to get this cake covered with frosting. In all seriousness, there are probably places on it that have at least an inch worth of frosting. Okay, that might be exaggerating…a little.

Have you heard about the magic of a “crumb layer.” Changed my frosting life forever. Put a thin messy layer of frosting on the cake, pop it in the fridge for 20 minutes, and then apply icing. Goes on smooth and easily!

Looks gorgeous. And what a nice surprise for your boys to come home to! I made a layer cake for one of my boy’s birthdays awhile back and had such a new appreciation for bakers afterwards. They aren’t easy!